<
https://www.positive.news/environment/energy/amid-an-energy-crisis-the-renewables-juggernaut-gathers-pace/>
"As emissions continue to rise and governments fail to respond with anything
like the urgency required, it’s tempting to conclude that the prospects for a
liveable planet are growing dim.
But as spring arrives, there is one striking spark of light. Sunlight, to be
precise – captured on solar panels and pumping out electrons down the wires, on
a scale unimaginable even a decade ago.
The amount of solar installed worldwide doubled between 2022 and 2024 alone. In
the first three quarters of 2025, it accounted for 83% of all new
electricity-generating capacity. Key to this is the continuing collapse in
costs, which have fallen by close to 90% per kWh in just the last decade.
Crucially, the cost of batteries – essential for storing the power generated –
has plunged by a similar amount in that time.
Over a longer period, the vertiginous fall in solar’s costs is unprecedented
for any energy technology: in 1975, it was $100 (£75) per watt. Today it’s just
$0.20 (£0.15) – a fall of 99.8%. It used to be just about the most expensive
way imaginable of generating power. Now, for much of the world, it is the
cheapest.
It’s not just affordability that’s boosting solar, but alacrity, too. In 2004,
it typically took a year to install a gigawatt (GW) of solar power (an amount
roughly equivalent to the capacity of a nuclear reactor or one of the larger
gas-fired power plants). In 2016, that had come down to a week. By 2023, it
took just 24 hours. And it’s still falling.
In his new book,
Here Comes the Sun, veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben
highlights some of the consequences of this double whammy in price and pace. In
Pakistan alone, to give one example, enough solar has been installed in the
last 18 months to account for one-third of the country’s current grid
capacity."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
